our political director, chief white house correspondent chuck todd is with us for more on this. chuck, what to do about it now in a nation not looking for yet another foreign conflict? >> reporter: absolutely. look, the first time personally the president acknowledged that, yes, they have -- we have evidence, the united states government -- evidence of chemical weapons being used in syria. but in a meeting and the oval office with the king of jordan he made that acknowledgment with a lot of caveats. take a listen. >> knowing that potentially chemical weapons have been used inside of syria doesn't tell us when they were used, how they were used, obtaining confirmation and strong evidence. all of those things we have to make sure we work on with the international community and we, ourselves, are going to focus on this. >> reporter: here's what sources are making clear to me. their intelligence, they believe, is spot on. they believe they know chemical weapons were used. they don't know who ordered it. did assad himself do it? is it a rogue agent? that's the evidence the president